VMware claims Dell deal will not harm alliances
VMware president claims Dell's ownership of VMware will not hinder VMware's partnerships with other vendors
VMware's president and COO, Carl Eschenbach (pictured), has said Dell's proposed acquisition of EMC will not pose a challenge to VMware's network of vendor alliances.
VMware has technology partnerships with hardware vendors such as Lenovo and HP, both of which compete directly with Dell.
On the opening day of this year's VMworld, Eschenbach was asked in a Q&A about what effects the Dell-EMC merger will have on VMware's network of vendor relationships, and claimed the partnerships will continue just as before.
"Let me take you back 11 years ago, when we had all of 465 people in VMware, and EMC acquired us," he said. "They acquired us for $625m (£404m) and at the time of the acquisition, the first thing we heard from all our partners was ‘EMC is a big storage company that has a very direct sales force - your partner ecosystem is going to deteriorate and all of your ecosystem that competes against EMC are going to go away'.
"And here we are today, and if I would ask you to go upstairs and walk across the Solutions Exchange Showcase, you'll see the vast ecosystem that has expanded well beyond what I believe we could have imagined.
"VMware has figured out how to operate in an environment where we were at the time owned by EMC, and were able to partner in an ecosystem. We believe that strategy and approach going forward is going to continue."
Eschenbach said that it is in Dell's interest to ensure that VMware, along with its vendor ecosystem, continues to be successful in the future.
"And if you look at the Dell acquisition of EMC, which gets an 80 per cent ownership of VMware, I can assure and promise you one of the key components of making this work, and being able to pay off the large debt Dell has taken on, is to make sure VMware is still successful. This was why Michael Dell was on stage supporting our ecosystem.
"We are in a complex operating environment from a competitive perspective, and it's something we are accustomed to and will figure out moving forward."